Monday, February 11, 2013

Thousands Protest Chicago School Closures and Budget Lies

February 8, from George Schmidt:Things are exploding here, with protests of more than 1,000 people against Chicago's school policies every night. We are only reporting some of them, and just about everyone leading them will need some rest this weekend. The CORE re-election campaign is holding the Second City benefit Sunday night, and that will provide everyone with some respite.

In addition to the local protests against the latest round of proposed school closings and the latest budget lies, the CTU voted unanimously Wednesday night to be part of "More than a score" and begin the petitioning, in the middle of winter, at 35 elementary schools.

After all these years, it's amazing that we now have mobilized thousands, and those numbers are growing. As Karen said Wednesday night to the union's 800-member House of Delegates, we are preparing to put more people on the streets than during the strike, when our averages were around 20,000.

This is, of course, unprecedented. And in keeping with their role, the plutocratic corporate media are trying to ignore it. We will be reporting as much as we can at Substance, and warn our friends everywhere that there are today only three (possibly four) ways to learn what's truly going on in Chicago:

There is also a new news service (DNAinfo) that is doing some nice work.

But as I reported, yesterday, the Chicago Sun-Times ignored the massive protests of the night before, and instead devoted a quarter page to the toilets at O'Hare Airport. And dozens of fatuous pundits.